


I've Started So I'll Finish

by fredbassett



Series: Stephen/Ryan series [91]
Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 19:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1576298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephen and Ryan are stuck on the wrong side of an anomaly, and it's cold. Naturally there's a certain sense of deja vu.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Started So I'll Finish

“Shelter,” said Stephen. “If this is shelter, then one wall and no roof make a house.”

“Sam Gamgee,” Ryan said automatically.

Stephen had recently got him reading Tolkien and they’d wiled away the time on anomaly watches recently by testing each other’s memory. But he hadn’t expected Stephen to continue playing the game when they were up to their knees in fast falling snow on the wrong side of an anomaly.

The rock wall ahead of them curved outwards slightly and the snow at its base looked marginally less thick, but Stephen was right, it didn’t provide much in the way of shelter.

“It’ll keep the wind off, at least,” Ryan said, doing his best to look on the bright side.

If the anomaly stuck to its recent pattern, they had at least four hours to kill before it opened again. Not for the first time that afternoon, Ryan cursed the feisty Yorkshire terrier that had slipped out of its collar, evaded all their attempts to grab it, and dashed past Cutter and through the anomaly. Knowing what conditions were like on the other side, Ryan had reluctantly agreed to Stephen’s plan to retrieve the dog and they’d gone through after it. The wretched animal had been enjoying itself in the snow and it had taken longer than even Stephen had anticipated to catch the scrappy little bugger.

Eventually, Ryan had managed to grab the dog and bowl it back to the 21st century in a perfectly-executed underarm throw only seconds before the anomaly had winked out of existence. At exactly the same moment, the snow had started falling again in earnest, and now it was practically blowing a white-out. If this was all they had by way of shelter, they were going to have to make the best of it.

A line of thin fir trees in front of the cliff would provide some additional shelter. Ryan picked up a broken branch from one of the trees and used it to sweep some of the snow away from the base of the rock. Stephen grabbed another one and started to do the same. Ryan drew his long-bladed fighting knife and used it to hack off the ends of some of the branches to provide some insulation between them and the cold rock. It wasn’t much, but it would certainly be better than nothing.

“There’s a couple of bigger branches on the ground over there,” Stephen said.

By gathering up all the fallen wood they could find, they managed to construct a rough shelter to keep the snow from falling directly on them. Ryan did what he could to brush the snow off them before they settled down against the cliff and prepared to wait out the storm. He wasn’t worried about missing the anomaly reopening. As soon as it did, the lads would be through looking for them, and the sound of a rifle-shot would be easily heard, even above the noise of the storm.

Ryan wrapped himself in the survival blanket he carried and sat down with his back against the rock wall, the thin but strong material providing some measure of insulation against the cold. Stephen and settled himself in between Ryan’s thighs and then tucked his own blanket around them, and drawing it up over their heads to capture the warm of their breath. There was no danger of suffocating under the snow. The fir branches and the slight overhang from the cliff would protect them from that.

“OK?” Ryan asked, wrapping his arms around his lover’s slim body and tucking his hands up underneath Stephen’s jacket.

Stephen wriggled back against him. “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?”

“My gun’s strapped to my right thigh and even your delectable arse pressed into my groin isn’t going get me hard in this fucking cold, sweetheart.” Ryan nipped lightly at Stephen’s earlobe.

Stephen sighed theatrically. “But we did the talking dirty routine last time we got stuck like this. I’m going to need something to take my mind off the prospect of imminent hypothermia.”

Ryan tightened his hold on Stephen. The last time they’d been stuck like this had been on the edge of a glacier when Stephen had taken a nasty falling through the snow cross and had buggered his ankle up. They’d had to wait for Lyle and the lads to mount a rescue and there had been times when Ryan had thought he’d been in danger of losing Stephen. It had also been the first time he’d called his lover by his first name. That wasn’t something Ryan would be likely to forget in a hurry.

“So what are we going to do for fun if me rubbing you off isn’t an option, soldier boy?” Stephen demanded after he’d finished squirming like a ferret in a sack.

“Something intellectually stimulating?” Ryan hazarded.

“You’re on!” Stephen thought a moment and then demanded, “Name Thorin’s nephews.”

Ryan grinned. Stephen was going to have to do better than that. “Fili and Kili. OK, my turn. What was the elvish word that Gandalf used to open the doors of Moria?”

* * * * *

The sound of a rifle blast two hours later saved Ryan from having to admit that he didn’t have the faintest bloody idea which Númenorean king had sent aid to Gil-galad in the war against Sauron at the end of the Second Age.

They knocked aside the branches, stuffed their survival blankets back into a pocket and started to wade through the drifted snow. They were both freezing cold, despite sharing body heat for the last few hours, and Ryan had been sufficiently concerned about the possibility of hypothermia to keep dredging the recesses of his mind for ever more obscure questions about Middle-Earth. He didn’t quite have Stephen’s passion for the books, but he had a fly-trap memory for detail, and so their tally of correct questions was still pretty close.

Not being able to feel your feet made walking a bit tricky, but they both managed to stumble through the trees towards the anomaly, spurred on by the encouraging yells from both Lyle and Finn.

Drizzle in the Forest of sodding Dean had never seemed quite so appealing before, and probably wouldn’t again, but for now, Ryan was just glad to be back somewhere warmer.

Stephen’s lips were blue with cold but he still had a big grin on his face as he demanded, “Go on, admit it, you don’t know!”

“You’re a competitive little sod, Hart. OK, I admit it, I don’t know which Númenorean king sent aid to Gil-galad in the war against Sauron,” he said, parroting his lover’s question back at him.

“Tar-Minastir!”

Finn looked at Ryan pityingly. “Didn’t you know that, boss? I won a tenner off Lyle with that question last week.”

Ryan stared at him in amazement and then laughed. It was good to be back, even if he had just lost twenty quid.


End file.
